Teaching Wonder: Jane Goodall inspires a Conscious Generation

What if the most powerful classroom tool isn’t another strategy, but a deeper way of seeing? In this episode, Amy Edelstein explore show purpose, presence, and philosophical clarity can reshape teaching from the inside out—so young people feel safe to grow, wonder, and lead with heart.

As Amy reflects on the quiet force of Jane Goodall’s life—her translucent presence, her unflinching observation of beauty and brutality, and her devotion to conservation—and translates those lessons into daily actions educators can take: walk lighter, listen longer, hold paradox without flinching.

 We then meet Peace Pilgrim, who turned values into motion, walking tens of thousands of miles as a living argument for peace. Her witness is a blueprint for schools: align methods with aims, structure learning for cooperation, and make compassion visible when tensions rise. 

Threaded through the episode is a case for philosophy as a practical compass. When conflict and noise escalate, ethical reflection keeps action aligned with the world we want to build.

Be sure to settle yourself before a long guided meditation to help you connect with the deeper currents you want to share with your students. 

Chapters

• 0:13 Welcome and Intentions for Educators
• 2:39 Honoring Jane Goodall’s Legacy
• 2:58 Nurturing Youth Potential and Creativity
• 6:00 Lessons from Peace Pilgrim
• 8:45 Why Philosophy Guides Action
• 12:08 Interdependence and Core Values
• 14:17 Choosing Reflection Over Distraction
• 15:57 Becoming More Conscious Educators
• 16:22 Guided Meditation: Stillness and Gratitude
• 27:07 Dedication and Closing Blessings
• 29:24 Outro and Listener Invitation

Transcript

Amy: 0:13

Welcome to the Conscious Classroom Podcast, where we're exploring tools and perspectives that support educators and anyone who works with teams to create more conscious, supportive, and enriching learning environments. I'm your host, Amy Edelstein, and I'll be sharing transformative insights and easy-to-implement classroom supports that are all drawn from mindful awareness and systems thinking. The themes we'll discuss are designed to improve your own joy and fulfillment in your work and increase your impact on the world we share. Let's get on with this next episode. Hello and welcome to the Conscious Classroom. My name is Amy Edelstein. I'm thrilled to be here with you today and to talk about two things that are very close to my heart and very close to my philosophy around education and how we can support our next generation to be really bright lights in this world. And I believe that there's so much potential and creativity and innovation and passion to make the world a better place in these young people. All we need to do is provide the framework, the scaffolding, the container, and the encouragement to allow them to be all that they can be. And I feel that that is really our responsibility as educators, our privilege and our honor as educators, to help bring that creative capacity forward and to be curious about the little shoots of awareness that are trying to sprout up in their consciousness. If we encourage them to tend to those shoots of awareness, to allow them to grow, to fertilize them and give them water by paying attention, by walking softly, by valuing them, then we will be doing not only our jobs as educators, but we will be doing an extraordinary service to the world. And this week we saw the passing of a great soul, Dr. Jane Goodall, who was so aligned with her recognition of the extraordinary preciousness of all life on earth, the miraculous nature of these beautiful creatures, and the forests and environments they live in, their curiosity and diversity, and even their meanness, as she saw the chimps were once she said her the dogs are her more favorite uh animals because they're loving where the chimps also she saw they would harm each other and have wars more human-like than many other creatures in that respect. I had the opportunity and blessing to meet her several times in my travels and to interview her at the UN Summit for Sustainable Development in South Africa in 2002. What struck me about her was her translucence, the amazing gentleness and light that would come out of her just as she walked down the hallway. Now her small frame, so beautiful, with so simple. She seemed to never have more than she needed, not schlapping big bags or rushing or tumbling over herself. She walked with a grace, as if she were existing in a different current of consciousness, as if she were listening and conversing in ways that I couldn't fathom or understand. Like she spanned two dimensions, two worlds, all her time observing the chimpanzees and gombi had given her access to currents in the life process that she could listen to and communicate from. And she was an extraordinary lover of people and life and lived fully till the very end of her days, moved and motivated to share the message of conservation, of respect for all species, for reverence for the created world. We can take so much encouragement from examples like hers, and we can share that with our students and show them that a life filled with passion and purpose is a happy life and a connected life, and one where there's friendship across borders, across continents, across ages, across political perspectives. Another example that has come to mind recently, and she in a similar way, peace pilgrim, who started walking in 1955 for peace, carrying nothing with her but her toothbrush, never asking for food or a place to sleep, only taking what was offered with her. She probably walked something like 42 or 43,000 miles until her death in 1981, living peace, walking peace, preaching peace, loving everyone where she went. If you've never heard of her, there's a beautiful hour-long documentary that you can access on YouTube. And be introduced to this woman whose answer to the wars, the atom bomb being dropped, Korean War, Vietnam War, was to be peace. And she saw the good in everyone. In our times of conflict and suffering right now, where we see wars breaking out, human orchestrated famines, cruelty in homes and on a national scale, where we see the language of conflict being elevated and venerated, and the language of peace and love and harmony being relegated to, at best, a dream of naive people, and at worst a philosophy to be feared. I'm not saying that action doesn't need to be taken, but that action we want to be aligned with the demonstration of the world that we want to see. And that requires us in education and in our personal life to really think philosophically, to think about the values of education, the values that we're aspiring to cultivate and inculcate in our young people, the values that we hold most dear, and the ones that we believe will make our world a truly expression of the magical creativity and wonder and balance that is possible. Thinking philosophically is not a luxury. As Aristotle first said, he said in times of trouble, philosophy is not a luxury but a necessity. And I first heard that from my husband, Jeff Carrera, and then I realized that its source was much older. Aristotle argued that philosophical reasoning and ethical reflection are of utmost importance. They are crucial when we face challenges because our philosophical framework is what enables us to make sound decisions and understand and interpret our circumstances. It allows us to step back and reconsider what we think, to recalibrate our lens, to refocus so that there's clarity and to check our moral compass so we're sure that we're heading in the right direction. It's not static. Our philosophical outlook evolves as we grow and understand, and yet there is a through line, a moral through line of goodness. So we want to test ourselves always at our edges. We want to see how we can lean in to make a more subtle and refined and understandable and understanding philosophical framework and keep growing because we grow at our edges. You know, a tenth grader struggling with algebra is not going to grow by going back to second grade math. That tenth grader is going to have to grow at our edges, and we, as their mentors and educators, have to grow at our edges and our own contemplative practice, whether it's mindfulness or poetry. So as we really contemplate the new times that we're living in, and we reflect and re-evaluate our educational philosophy, we want to step back and root in both that which is most basic and elemental, love and compassion, innovation and evolution, interdependence and fundamental goodness, the understanding of consequence, of cause and effect, the understanding of our interdependent nature. Some people these days want to colonize Mars as if we could get away from the struggle of the Earth, as if we could give up on this life experiment here and simply try again somewhere else. We're still interconnected. We're still codependent. There's nowhere in the cosmos that we can go that's far enough to separate our interrelatedness. And so rooting very deeply in those values of peace, love, generosity, care, vision, surrender, compassion. And seeing how that expresses itself in our life will be the best thing we can do to support our young people's education. Taking that hour for deep reflection on a walk in the woods, in the park, on your street block is going to serve them well. And it will serve them for longer and more deeply than catching up on your grading and checking your emails or scrolling through social media because you need some sense of fullness and relief, and yet it never seems to bring that. We look outside for entertainment, for something to fill, that gnawing ache, for something to answer those questions our heart asks in difficult times. That time is much better spent dropping in, working with our contemplative practice to explore the murmurings of our heart, to listen to the possible, and to walk gently wherever we go, even if we're rushing, to still walk gently on this earth, like peace pilgrimage did, and find that extraordinary strength. Creating a conscious classroom means that we must become more conscious. We must become more sensitive to the currents of being. We must fall in love so much more deeply with life itself, with the beauty of being alive. As the great late Joanna Macy counseled us in one of her lectures, where she said, I only have one minute left, so in one minute I'm going to tell you how to save the world. She said, fall in love with life. When we value our human sentience over our frustration, when we marvel at the wonder that we can even talk with other human beings, that we develop that ability for language, communication, where we could connect and explore together, or touch one another, or make one another laugh. Isn't that amazing? Getting your students to fall in love and to be filled with wonder at the life process, not at what they have, what they hold, what outside them is filling them, whether it's a hundred percent on a test or acceptance to their desired college or a role, lead role in the school play. Those things are all wonderful for them. But letting them fall in love with the wonder of being alive and for all the things that are possible to experience and do in human life and to witness and observe in the world around us will help them feel okay about being hopeful and passionate about the world. In order to not pass on our cynicism and discouragement, whether we've had some challenges in our personal lives or we see challenges that others are facing around us, we must be the examples of lovers of life. And our own practice can serve that. Let's allow ourselves to drop into that space of contemplation right now, letting your attention turn from the outer to the inner. Whatever you want to call it, tap into that current that you can experience without trying to give it a name. And allow yourself to be carried on that current. Feeling its flow, feeling its endlessness, not knowing when it started, and not knowing where it will end. Feeling that hum of beingness, that hum, maybe it comes from the war of electrons around the nuclei of atoms. It feels so fundamental that that current is part of the deep dark sky and the thrushes and the bird feeder and your students as they file into class chattering laughing. That hum of life that is always there that we forget to turn to when we're lonely or afraid. This is a current of goodness. They can allow us to hold anger, grief, shame, pain. That is part of our human capacity. Just as Jane Goodall saw it in the chimpanzees she studied. Keep allowing yourself to be still to use the breath as an anchor to let your attention flow with the inhalation and the exhalation. And then keep allowing yourself to drop further below thought, below feeling. Now, in that stillness, where you're no longer pushing against thought and feeling, where you're resting in yourself, where you're being carried by that current. Allow the sense of gratitude, of gratefulness to come to the surface of your experience. Gratefulness for your physical capacity for the people you love, for the beautiful sky. Gratefulness to have a purpose in this world. To be able to contemplate what it is to walk with intentionality, let that experience of gratefulness flood through your body, extending past the boundaries of your form, what you usually think to be yourself. Let that gratefulness fill the corners of your mind. Rest with the question Is there anything missing in this moment? Am I enough in this moment? Recognize the assurance that comes back. Not from your mind or the world around you. But from that indivisibility with the current of life, that hum of beingness. Enjoy this resting in beingness. And as you are ready to begin to lift yourself from the depths to re-engage with the familiar objects around you. Letting yourself be different from the inside out. Even as you go through the same emotions and activity, and as we draw this meditation to a close, allow yourself to dedicate the fruits of your practice to an ever-deepening commitment to walk softly in the world. Directed to true north by our moral compass to bring that to our students, to create a conscious classroom, a conscious education, a conscious world. And may all beings experience that joy and love of life and lightness of being. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May ignorance be dispelled. May clear view dawn. And may we continuously give rise to a positive way of being in the world. I wish you well. Till next time. Thank you for listening to the conscious classroom. I'm your host, Amy Edelstein. Please check out the show notes on InnerStrengthFoundation.net for links and more information. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with a friend and pass the love on. See you next time.